discursos del embajador

U.S. Diplomacy in the Americas: A Conversation with the Diplomatic Corps

Thomas A. Shannon, Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs
U.S. Ambassadors to Western Hemisphere Countries
U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Washington, DC

December 5, 2008

Note: Edited version. Read the whole transcript at: http://www.state.gov/p/wha/rls/rm/2008/q4/112956.htm

MS. ADREAN ROTHKOPF: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the U.S. Chamber Of Commerce. My name is Adrean Rothkopf and I am Vice President for Western Hemisphere Affairs. We’re honored to welcome Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Thomas Shannon and the U.S. Ambassadors to the region for what promises to be an exciting conversation about diplomacy in the Americas.

Please do excuse those Ambassadors who have to slip out early for a meeting at the White House.

I’d also like to extend a special welcome to all of our distinguished guests, Ambassadors representing countries from throughout the hemisphere, members of the Diplomatic Corps, the leaders of the Chambers of Commerce from around the country here for the Trade Roots Best Practices Summit, and members of the Young Professionals in Foreign Policy.

As you can see, we have an impressive array of speakers this morning. Tom Shannon and each of these U.S. Ambassadors to the region have had distinguished careers and made important contributions to the U.S. relationship with the hemisphere. While time unfortunately does not permit me to introduce each of them individually, their biographies have been distributed to each of you. You will also find a seating chart in your program.

This is truly meant to be a discussion so I’d like to encourage everyone to participate by asking questions. Please note that there are question cards placed around the room on your seats. If you have a question, please write it down on the card provided. One of our staff members will be collecting them shortly. We promise to do our very best to accommodate as many questions as possible. Please note that we’ll be combining similar questions and will strive to achieve a balance among topics.

We’ve also asked each of our distinguished speakers to limit their responses to just a couple of minutes each. This will allow both a greater number of Ambassadors to speak and will permit us to ask as many of your questions as possible. In fact, we have installed dozens of trap doors on the stage, and I am operating the controls. [Laughter]

Seriously, with such a limited amount of time and so many terrific participants, brief remarks are a sign of respect for everyone else.

With that in mind I would like to turn the floor to Tom Shannon to get us started with some initial remarks.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SHANNON: Thank you very much, Adrean. We’re deeply grateful to you and to the Chamber for hosting this, and very grateful for all of you present today from the Diplomatic Corps and other visitors.

All of you share an interest and a passion in the Americas and we appreciate and respect that. We share that passion with you. It’s a real pleasure to be here today with all of my colleagues and our Chiefs of Mission from all of our embassies throughout the Western Hemisphere.

Every year we hold a Chief of Missions Conference here in Washington where we bring together all of our Chiefs of Mission in order to talk about the region and to talk about our policies and our programs and to reconnect our Ambassadors to the policy community here in Washington. Typically these are in-house events where we meet with different officials from the U.S. government and from our Congress, but this time around so close to our transition we thought that this was a moment to bring together people who have been working in the field in some instances for many years and have an opportunity to speak publicly about what has happened over those years, what we think we’ve accomplished, where we’ve been successful, where we haven’t been successful, what policy and program tools have worked and what have not, and what kind of challenges we expect as we look forward. We thought this would be a great moment for a dialogue with all of you and an opportunity for this administration in its final weeks to talk about the context of our diplomacy.

This is not an advocacy session, although we’re happy to do so. This has been an exciting and dramatic time in the Americas. The hemisphere that George Bush inherited in January of 2001 was a very different hemisphere than the one he will hand over in January of 2009. There are new voices in the hemisphere, there are new constituencies in the hemisphere, there are new economic relationships in the hemisphere, and there’s a whole myriad of integration efforts and other organizational efforts that really underscore the richness and the dynamism of the Americas. This has been an exciting and I think a fruitful and positive area of the world to work in, and I think my colleagues would agree.

It’s a real pleasure for us to be here. We really look forward to this discussion.

Adrean, I’ll turn it back to you.

MS. ROTHKOPF: Thank you very much.

I do have my first set of questions here, and I do apologize because I want to make sure that everyone is actually here before I direct a question to them.

This next question, I’d like to direct it first to Ambassador Simons, but then I’d like to open it up to the Ambassadors from Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic.

What benefits have you seen in your respective countries with the existing trade agreements with the United States, and how has the enhanced trading relationship impacted other areas of the bilateral relationship?

AMBASSADOR PAUL E. SIMONS (Chile): Thank you very much for that question. I’d also like to thank the U.S. Chamber for organizing this event. And also recognize here in the audience Jaime Bezan who is the Executive Secretary of our AMCHAM Chile. The Chile AMCHAM played a major role in the development and passage of the U.S.-Chile FTA. They were really instrumental. They’re really tremendous partners with us in a whole wide range of areas, from intellectual property to corporate social responsibility to implementing other aspects of the FTA, so we’re delighted to have them with us.

The U.S.-Chile FTA has been in place now for almost five years. During that period we’ve seen a near tripling of bilateral trade flows. Last year combined imports and exports were up to about $17 billion per year. During that period also U.S. exports more than tripled. So we’ve had a tremendous impact, a tremendous positive impact from the bilateral FTA.

I think it’s also important to note, though, that the U.S.-Chile FTA is just one of more than 50 Free Trade Agreements that Chile has signed with its major trading partners and Chile was committed to an open trade environment well prior to the negotiation of their FTA. They basically looked to free trade as a way to grow the economy and more importantly to reduce poverty. I think it’s important to note that since 1990 the poverty rate in Chile has gone down from about 40 percent to about 13 percent and that coincides with the period of the negotiation and implementation of these FTAs around the world.

So I think the fact that Chile’s been able to reduce poverty in connection with these Free Trade Agreements is very important.

The other important point I wanted to make is that the U.S.-Chile FTA has led to a lot of growth in exports from small and medium sized U.S. companies. We now have 12,000 U.S. companies selling more than 5,000 products to Chile, and this has been a big explosion. Jaime was explaining to me on the plane on the way up here that we just had a delegation from the State of Mississippi, and if I’m not mistaken, Jaime, Mississippi exports to Chile have increased five-fold just in the last couple of years. So I see there are a number of representatives here from different states including not necessarily the largest states in the union, but we’ve had great visits from Governors of the smaller states of the U.S. I think there’s tremendous opportunity to piggyback on this FTA for some of the small and medium sized businesses at the state level. So I would definitely encourage you all to take a close look at the Chilean market, to come down. We’ll be happy to host you. I’ll have a reception at the residence, and we’ll get you well introduced and Jaime and the AMCHAM will facilitate your meetings.

Just to conclude, the U.S.-Chile FTA has been a fantastic platform, it’s been very successful, it’s helped both countries, it’s created jobs, it’s helped reduce poverty, and it’s opened up opportunities for activity at the state level in the U.S. Thanks.

AMBASSADOR HUGO LLORENS (Honduras): I want to thank the U.S. Chamber for hosting us here. This is a great opportunity.

We have a great relationship with the American Chamber in Honduras, a Chamber that was created about 30 years ago and has done great work in bringing U.S. and Honduran business together.

Certainly CAFTA has been very successful for the U.S.-Honduran trade relationship. If you look at the numbers, trade has not grown significantly. I think Honduran exports have averaged since CAFTA came in place about six percent. But I think the most important thing is that it locks a benefit for both countries. It really provides a platform for tremendous growth.

I think one of the things that you see is that last year investment in Honduras grew to, I think it was about $850 million, which is quite sizeable for a $10 billion economy. And part of that investment is certainly related to CAFTA.

So one of the keys for Honduras to be able to generate sustained growth is to be able to get that FDI. So that’s been positive.

Another thing I would mention is we all know that Honduras, dating back to the period of the Caribbean Basin Initiative, was able to develop a very strong maquila industry. But what we’re seeing is a lot of growth in the non-maquila sector, particularly in the ag sector, non-traditional products like fruits and vegetables have tremendous potential.

For the United States it’s really, our exports have grown significantly since CAFTA. We do run a trade surplus of total trade of $8 billion. So it is a great opportunity for us.

I think one of the keys is how you, in terms of the agenda that the United States has in Honduras which is a very positive agenda. I just want to mention the fact that we have the Millennium Challenge Compact which is a $250 million program, particularly focused on infrastructure road building, but also on helping small farmers. We have a very sizeable and robust USAID program where we disburse about $50 million a year, and I’m very proud of the fact that we have the largest Peace Corps program in Latin America. So we have this very positive agenda. But I think one of the keys for CAFTA and for creating sustained growth and development in Honduras is how you can get CAFTA again, out, so you can achieve social justice is get the benefits of CAFTA and trade into the small farmer, into communities that have been marginalized in the past. Thank you.

AMBASSADOR STEPHEN G. MCFARLAND (Guatemala): Thank you for the opportunity to be here and to answer the question.

In terms of the impact on Guatemala and Guatemala-U.S. relations, CAFTA has certainly increased trade. But I would say in addition to sort of the impact on macro indicators, as Ambassador Llorens was saying, you can see it at the micro level as well. Going out to speak with small farmers, we’re talking about farmers who have holdings of perhaps less than one or two acres, it’s impressive. You get far away from the capital and these people are aware that now, thanks to CAFTA, they have opportunities to grow additional products and to export them through cooperatives and they’re making a lot more money. It’s putting money back into the community and I think that’s very important.

CAFTA also, apart from the economic side, it reinforces a very important relationship that we have, U.S.-Guatemala.

There is a lot of opportunity to take even more advantage of CAFTA. I would say that with Guatemala the principal challenges are investing more in people and more in health, more in education. This is one of the things that will probably be addressed in the Pathways to Prosperity Ministerial in Panama later next week. It’s also something that the government of Guatemala is addressing through its own social and education programs.

Finally I’d like to say that longer term the true success of CAFTA and really the ability to take advantage of its opportunities will depend on investing more in and improving the security situation. That is something that the United States and Guatemala are interested in doing. The Merida Initiative will be an important resource to address that.

Thank you.

AMBASSADOR ROBERT J. CALLAHAN (Nicaragua): Everything my colleagues from Honduras and Guatemala have said about CAFTA also apply to Nicaragua.

I’d just cite a couple of figures. Nicaraguan exports to the United States as a result of CAFTA have increased by almost 40 percent. Our exports to Nicaragua have increased by about 25 percent. There has been one very conspicuous investment. It’s called Cone Denim. It was about a $100 million investment. It employs over a thousand people. It of course creates a lot ancillary business around it as well.

The question about how it applies to people and development of the social structure of the country also applies in Nicaragua as well.

MS. ROTHKOPF: Thank you very much.

This next question is for Ambassador Callahan. Could you please comment on the political situation in Nicaragua?

AMBASSADOR ROBERT J. CALLAHAN (Nicaragua): The issue that is of most concern to Nicaraguans and the international community at the moment is the elections. Nicaragua, as many of you probably know, just had municipal elections the 9th of November. There were serious and credible allegations of fraud and irregularities. The opposition has not accepted the results of the election. They have been out in the streets protesting. The business community, including the American Chamber of Commerce, the Catholic Church and most of the international community also are very concerned with the results of the elections and with the allegations of fraud. Some countries have moved to suspend or reduce aid. Nicaragua depends greatly on international aid, about a quarter of its budget is derived from direct budgetary support which they receive from international donors and from individual countries.

Until this issue is resolved I’m afraid the political situation will remain pretty tense down there. How it’s going to be resolved remains to be seen. The opposition would prefer to have a recount of the vote or another election. Whether they will accept negotiations of some sort remains to be seen. But until this issue is resolved the issue of the future of Nicaragua, frankly, can be difficult to determine. It is a very serious problem.

Even before the election the opposition parties had serious issues with the Nicaraguan government, claiming that the courts were politicized, that the legislature was manipulated. But Nicaraguans have had a history of sitting down and negotiating their problems, and this may come to pass. However at the moment the urgent issue is, of course, resolving the problems surrounding the municipal elections.

MS. ROTHKOPF: Thank you very much.

Read the whole transcript at: http://www.state.gov/p/wha/rls/rm/2008/q4/112956.htm